Exclusive interview with Gwendoline Christie

Note: © HBO/Sky/myFanbase 2013 - The interview is exclusive to myFanbase and may not be published on other websites or the like. You may share the first 2 questions or up to 160 characters if you link back to this site. Translations other than English and German may be posted with full credit including the writer's name and link to this site.
Foto: Gwendoline Christie, Game of Thrones - Copyright: 2013 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved.
Gwendoline Christie, Game of Thrones
© 2013 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved.

The books could either be a fantastic resource to an actor or a distraction. What’s your take on them?

I continue to read them. They are a real gift because there’s a fount of information about a character so you don’t have to do the making up. You’ve got all those foundation elements in place. Also they are exciting books. The character is brilliantly and very distinctly and vividly drawn so every bit of information you get is just something else you can use to create, hopefully, an exciting and real and vivid person. The more information you have the better. The rest of it you fill up with what you feel is necessary.

Is Game of Thrones as impressive to film as it is to watch?

Every single time I get to a location it’s ‘wow!’ The job that the art department do is phenomenal. The detail is really incredibly strict. Let’s say you’re filming in a camp, there’ll be a tent, between takes you’ll have a look inside that tent and even though it’s not being used for anything it’ll be completely furnished! The world feels real.

Brienne has to look not just competent in her swordsmanship but brilliant…

Yes and it was really important to me to be good. I knew getting there would not be easy because I had been taught fencing at school. I hadn’t done it extensively, so it wasn’t as if I was going in completely cold, but I may as well have been. The swords are very heavy, they’re as real as possible. I worked with a brilliant fight director called C.C. Smiff who is not only really diligent about every single aspect and detail, but lots and lots of fun. When he got me I was a bit of a wuss. He had to get me to butch up a lot. He got me to walk about with a kettlebell to get a sense of the weight of the sword. ‘Come on! Butch up a bit, come on!’ he’d always say. I loved doing that because I had someone helping me with the physical transformation. This is a very distinct character. I didn’t want it to just be me walking around. I wanted it to be a powerful dynamic woman with real strength walking around who had deliberately assumed a masculine gait and stance. Because that’s what she’s done. I mean I don’t think for a moment that woman was born walking that way. She does it because it pushes people away. It says, ‘I am male so keep away,’ which is also a point of ridicule. But yes, HBO were brilliant and gave me extensive sword fighting lessons. And I was thoroughly excited to learn that as a new skill.

Foto: Gwendoline Christie, Game of Thrones - Copyright: 2013 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved.
Gwendoline Christie, Game of Thrones
© 2013 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved.

How handy would you say you are now?

I’m alright actually.

Who thinks they’re best on the cast ?

Nikolaj. He thinks he’s best … and he probably is! Don’t tell him. You can’t imagine how he’d go on.

How was your horse riding when you joined Game of Thrones?

I had a bit of experience with horses when I was 10 or 11. Again not very much. But horse riding is one of those things that you think you only experience as a child - and yet I’ve completely fallen in love with it again. I love riding and I’ve gone out of my way to become good at that. I’m not good yet but I’m definitely competent. And I love my horse.

Have you been trained up?

Yes. By the brilliant Camilla Naprous who was jolly good fun as well. It’s so easy to work with her. I really loved going to the stables and I’d go as often as I could do because another major element is that Brienne is on a horse all the time. So she’d not only be competent but she’d be fearless. It’d be just like driving a car to her.

Brienne is a fan favourite from the books. What does it feel like to be taking on this role?

It’s a brilliant part for an actor to play. It’s very close to my heart and it’s very important because it draws up all sorts of issues about the notions of prejudice, about gender stereotyping, about what it is to be a woman, femininity, female emancipation… all those things in an incredibly successful, mainstream show. For me, personally as an actor, that is a dream. I think everyone can relate to their own experience of prejudice and what it is to be an outsider. Every single person in the world has a taste of that and here’s a character that people can connect to. I’ve had some very nice feedback. Definitely the best one was when I arrived at Heathrow one day and I was just rushing to the check-in. There was a big group of American women and they all shouted "It’s Brienne!" and started screaming. I felt like Michael Jackson!

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